Monday, May 29, 2017
Post 9: Cloud Computing; Big Data
Class discussion revolved around the uses of Cloud Computing and the significance of Big Data.
Sunday, May 21, 2017
Post 8: Innovation
Tolerance for Failure
Since beginning my studies in Industrial Engineering, I have heard Toyota mentioned dozens of times. Toyota is the father of Lean, and an example that many companies across industries should learn from. According to the article "Toyota Innovation Culture Profile," there are several factors that influence Toyota's success, including 'tolerance for failure.'
Tolerance for failure is what enables failure to happen. But why would we want failure? Failure is important for organizational innovation, for the simple reason that the if one doesn't try new things, one can never move forward, and trying by nature is prone to failure. An organization that does not allow room for failure is therefore doomed to become obsolete.
Availability of Reward Mechanisms for Innovation
Another important factor in Toyota's success is it's reward system for employee innovation. Who in Toyota is rewarded and how?
Blue Oceans
Shark Fin
In class we discussed the shark fin model. This model refers to market adoption of new technology, and is contrary to the traditional bell curve model. But what causes this shark fin?
Since beginning my studies in Industrial Engineering, I have heard Toyota mentioned dozens of times. Toyota is the father of Lean, and an example that many companies across industries should learn from. According to the article "Toyota Innovation Culture Profile," there are several factors that influence Toyota's success, including 'tolerance for failure.'
Tolerance for failure is what enables failure to happen. But why would we want failure? Failure is important for organizational innovation, for the simple reason that the if one doesn't try new things, one can never move forward, and trying by nature is prone to failure. An organization that does not allow room for failure is therefore doomed to become obsolete.
Availability of Reward Mechanisms for Innovation
Another important factor in Toyota's success is it's reward system for employee innovation. Who in Toyota is rewarded and how?
Blue Oceans
Shark Fin
In class we discussed the shark fin model. This model refers to market adoption of new technology, and is contrary to the traditional bell curve model. But what causes this shark fin?
Monday, May 8, 2017
Post 7: Crowdsourcing
An organization plans to use crowdsourcing in developing a new type of robot. How can crowdsourcing help?
Sunday, May 7, 2017
Post 6: Knowledge Preservation
As we learned, most of a company's knowledge lies between the ears of its employees. Employees might not even be aware of the knowledge they have.
Post 5: Organizational Digital Content
The questions at hand refer to management of digital documents within a company.
Tuesday, April 25, 2017
Post 4: Large Organizations; False Alarm
KM in Large Organizations
For this assignment, we were asked to read an article regarding learning lessons (or "debriefing") in large organizations.
The article lists several examples for faulty debriefing, in all sorts of organizations. The reasons for faulty debriefing are plenty, but the one that stands out most is the reference to "organizational memory" - especially in the context of the IDF. Manpower in the army is always switching over, so new soldiers need to be taught.
False Alarms
The second part of this assignment is about the issue of false alarms. As an engineering student, I've been taught that there will always be a trade off between the type 1 and type 2 errors - and this trade off has to be determined by the management. It is easy to say that an event with devastating results should be avoided at all costs - but what if the cost is a system that cries wolf? There is no right answer regarding the alarm system itself, but for a problem like the one in the assignment, the solution is training the staff thoroughly. If the staff members are aware of the cost of the spilled material, and know how the alarm system works - they'll be able to avoid such mistakes in the future.
In some cases, false alarms can have devestating concequences in themselves.
For this assignment, we were asked to read an article regarding learning lessons (or "debriefing") in large organizations.
The article lists several examples for faulty debriefing, in all sorts of organizations. The reasons for faulty debriefing are plenty, but the one that stands out most is the reference to "organizational memory" - especially in the context of the IDF. Manpower in the army is always switching over, so new soldiers need to be taught.
False Alarms
The second part of this assignment is about the issue of false alarms. As an engineering student, I've been taught that there will always be a trade off between the type 1 and type 2 errors - and this trade off has to be determined by the management. It is easy to say that an event with devastating results should be avoided at all costs - but what if the cost is a system that cries wolf? There is no right answer regarding the alarm system itself, but for a problem like the one in the assignment, the solution is training the staff thoroughly. If the staff members are aware of the cost of the spilled material, and know how the alarm system works - they'll be able to avoid such mistakes in the future.
In some cases, false alarms can have devestating concequences in themselves.
Wednesday, April 5, 2017
Post 3: LinkedIn; Tools
LinkedIn - to Whom Does the Information Belong?
In class, we discussed the widely known professional social network - LinkedIn. In this assignment the discussion is about whether an employee's (Sigal) LinkedIn profile can be considered intellectual property of his company rather than his own.
The company claims that the connections belong to the company, but I disagree. A person's LinkedIn profile belongs to her alone. It uses her email address and password and is updated by her.
If the company wanted its connections to belong to the company and not the employees, it should have those connections contact the company, and not Sigal. It is possible that the contacts connected with Sigal only because of the company she worked for - but in that case the company doesn't have to worry, because the connections won't want to keep their connection now that she's not in the company. The bottom line is that if human contacts are the company's main asset - the company should have a way to manage those contacts independently of its own manpower.
Tools - Which Tool Would I Find Useful?
The tool that caught my eye in class was Evernote. It reminds me of Pinterest a little, in the sense that one can save website articles by topic - but if Pinterest works primarily with photos, it seems that Evernote works well with articles or web-pages of any type. The next obvious advantage of Evernote it the ability to actually save the sites to one's desktop, including the ability to search through them - a feature that Pinterest doesn't offer.
In class, we discussed the widely known professional social network - LinkedIn. In this assignment the discussion is about whether an employee's (Sigal) LinkedIn profile can be considered intellectual property of his company rather than his own.
The company claims that the connections belong to the company, but I disagree. A person's LinkedIn profile belongs to her alone. It uses her email address and password and is updated by her.
If the company wanted its connections to belong to the company and not the employees, it should have those connections contact the company, and not Sigal. It is possible that the contacts connected with Sigal only because of the company she worked for - but in that case the company doesn't have to worry, because the connections won't want to keep their connection now that she's not in the company. The bottom line is that if human contacts are the company's main asset - the company should have a way to manage those contacts independently of its own manpower.
Tools - Which Tool Would I Find Useful?
The tool that caught my eye in class was Evernote. It reminds me of Pinterest a little, in the sense that one can save website articles by topic - but if Pinterest works primarily with photos, it seems that Evernote works well with articles or web-pages of any type. The next obvious advantage of Evernote it the ability to actually save the sites to one's desktop, including the ability to search through them - a feature that Pinterest doesn't offer.
Wednesday, March 29, 2017
Post 2: KM Priniciples; CIO Background
KM Principles
In his article, Thomas Stewart discusses ten principles of Knowledge Management - or Intellectual Capital. Such capital can be extremely beneficial to a corporation if used correctly, and Stewart makes some suggestion as to how knowledge can be managed in the best possible way for any type of company.
According to Stewart, intellectual capital is not owned by any one person - its value comes from sharing it among people. In order to enable such sharing, it is important to foster teamwork and other social forms of learning. (My personal experience tells me that friendship and cooperation between teams is helpful to everyone involved.)
If a company can recognize its KM assets, only then can it invest in them. It isn't an easy investment - the product of good KM is visible only to the company's employees - and not to its customers. However, such investment is critical for company success.
CIO Background
In class, the lecturer asked an open question - when choosing a CIO for a company, what sort of credentials should he have?
The CIO would have to have a good grasp of the technology available for his work, but this doesn't mean that he needs to come from a technical position. On the contrary, the person who is in charge of company knowledge should be a person who knows how company knowledge is used - meaning that it should be someone who has worked on the factory floor, so to speak. Ideally, I think, this person should spend time working with every team in the company, to see exactly what knowledge they need for their daily work.
In his article, Thomas Stewart discusses ten principles of Knowledge Management - or Intellectual Capital. Such capital can be extremely beneficial to a corporation if used correctly, and Stewart makes some suggestion as to how knowledge can be managed in the best possible way for any type of company.
According to Stewart, intellectual capital is not owned by any one person - its value comes from sharing it among people. In order to enable such sharing, it is important to foster teamwork and other social forms of learning. (My personal experience tells me that friendship and cooperation between teams is helpful to everyone involved.)
If a company can recognize its KM assets, only then can it invest in them. It isn't an easy investment - the product of good KM is visible only to the company's employees - and not to its customers. However, such investment is critical for company success.
CIO Background
In class, the lecturer asked an open question - when choosing a CIO for a company, what sort of credentials should he have?
The CIO would have to have a good grasp of the technology available for his work, but this doesn't mean that he needs to come from a technical position. On the contrary, the person who is in charge of company knowledge should be a person who knows how company knowledge is used - meaning that it should be someone who has worked on the factory floor, so to speak. Ideally, I think, this person should spend time working with every team in the company, to see exactly what knowledge they need for their daily work.
Tuesday, March 21, 2017
Post 1: KM ISO; Company Blog
The Case for KM Standards
For class, we read an article that discusses the need for standards in knowledge management. Nick Milton, the writer, lists several reasons for such standards to be determined by ISO.
First, KM doesn't have one clear definition. Different companies may mean different things when they say "knowledge management." Each company may not have the authority to decide what the term means, but ISO might - so it would be helpful to have an ISO standard for companies to refer to.
Second, KM may be a complicated subject with different applications in different environments, but there are common mistakes that everyone should be able to avoid. Having a standard could reduce the number of failed KM projects.
Third, a standard is a good way to judge not only yourself, but also other companies that provide KM services - in the event of KM outsourcing, to tell whether the company does a good job.
The author mentions also that a standard can be used as a guideline and doesn't have to have strict rules, and also that this is exactly the sort of thing that ISO does.
Company Blog
In search for a company blog, I began with companies that I've gotten to know through interviews. Having spent the last few months job hunting, finding company blogs has become a hobby of mine.
PayPal, for instance, has a blog called "PayPal Stories" (which can be found at https://www.paypal.com/stories/us).
PayPal's blog includes articles relating to several categories. Of course there are news stories about the company's achievments and new technologies, but the blog also includes articles that could be helpful to average PayPal users - like people who have their own businesses. Some of the articles relate to community work, and some relate to people who work at the company. The blog is clean and pretty and easy to navigate.
The blog's target audience can be both professionals and just average joes who want to learn more about the company. Such a blog does two things: 1. It shows the technology side of PayPal, which is helpful for a business that is considering using PayPal's services; 2. It shows the human side of PayPal - this is specifically important because PayPal's customers are entrusting PayPal with their money and credit card information.
Naturally, the blog also offers other ways to follow PayPal on social media, which speaks to any sort of customer.
For class, we read an article that discusses the need for standards in knowledge management. Nick Milton, the writer, lists several reasons for such standards to be determined by ISO.
First, KM doesn't have one clear definition. Different companies may mean different things when they say "knowledge management." Each company may not have the authority to decide what the term means, but ISO might - so it would be helpful to have an ISO standard for companies to refer to.
Second, KM may be a complicated subject with different applications in different environments, but there are common mistakes that everyone should be able to avoid. Having a standard could reduce the number of failed KM projects.
Third, a standard is a good way to judge not only yourself, but also other companies that provide KM services - in the event of KM outsourcing, to tell whether the company does a good job.
The author mentions also that a standard can be used as a guideline and doesn't have to have strict rules, and also that this is exactly the sort of thing that ISO does.
Company Blog
In search for a company blog, I began with companies that I've gotten to know through interviews. Having spent the last few months job hunting, finding company blogs has become a hobby of mine.
PayPal, for instance, has a blog called "PayPal Stories" (which can be found at https://www.paypal.com/stories/us).
PayPal's blog includes articles relating to several categories. Of course there are news stories about the company's achievments and new technologies, but the blog also includes articles that could be helpful to average PayPal users - like people who have their own businesses. Some of the articles relate to community work, and some relate to people who work at the company. The blog is clean and pretty and easy to navigate.
The blog's target audience can be both professionals and just average joes who want to learn more about the company. Such a blog does two things: 1. It shows the technology side of PayPal, which is helpful for a business that is considering using PayPal's services; 2. It shows the human side of PayPal - this is specifically important because PayPal's customers are entrusting PayPal with their money and credit card information.
Naturally, the blog also offers other ways to follow PayPal on social media, which speaks to any sort of customer.
Industrial Engineering student, pleasure to meet you.
This is it. I've finally reached my last year of university. It's been a rollercoaster, and I'm down to my last few courses. It's a wonderful feeling.
One of those courses is Knowledge Management, or KM. In requesting that we create blogs, the professor has made it clear that this course is meant to be practical and not just academic, which I hope will make for a pleasant experience.
I'm not new to blogger.com - I created my first blog when I was sixteen and wrote in it periodically until a few years ago. Blogging is a wonderful concept, I'd like to get back into it.
The field of KM isn't new to me either - in the army, my team had to put extra effort into efficient knowledge management for two main reasons: 1. Many tasks had to be completed within a few hours, even at night, so any information needed in order to complete a task had to be readily accesible; 2. One-third of the team members were replaced every six months - one group of soldiers would complete their service and a new group would take their place - meaning that training had to be quick and easy, and also that no one really had the chance to become truly professional. Knowledge was stored in a shared file and in old emails.
One of those courses is Knowledge Management, or KM. In requesting that we create blogs, the professor has made it clear that this course is meant to be practical and not just academic, which I hope will make for a pleasant experience.
I'm not new to blogger.com - I created my first blog when I was sixteen and wrote in it periodically until a few years ago. Blogging is a wonderful concept, I'd like to get back into it.
The field of KM isn't new to me either - in the army, my team had to put extra effort into efficient knowledge management for two main reasons: 1. Many tasks had to be completed within a few hours, even at night, so any information needed in order to complete a task had to be readily accesible; 2. One-third of the team members were replaced every six months - one group of soldiers would complete their service and a new group would take their place - meaning that training had to be quick and easy, and also that no one really had the chance to become truly professional. Knowledge was stored in a shared file and in old emails.
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